The present invention relates to improvements to high performance rowing apparatus.
Rowing for competition, recreation and excercise in specialized boats called shells has existed for over a century, and is a respected international and Olympic sport as well as being popular in schools and clubs and with individual sportsmen.
Shells are very narrow boats having long waterline lengths to attain what is known a high displacement-hull-speed and small surface area to reduce hydrodymamic friction drag. Outriggers extend laterally from the narrow hull to offer a wide support of the oarlocks for the purpose of reducing the angularity of the oars during the power stroke. The seats are mounted on rollers moving longitudinally to the boat on tracks, and the oarsmans's feet are secured to the boat against rigid footboards by means of shoelike restraints or straps. The oars, called sculls where each oarsman uses two, and sweeps where each oarsman uses only one, are long and light and incorporate curved blades. The oars are pivoted in hinged oarlocks carried in sockets at the extremities of the outriggers. Shells have to be balanced laterally due to their narrow hulls and the topheavy position of the oarsman over the narrow hull by the static floatation of and by dynamic planing of the oar blades in the water. The oarsman sits facing backwards for the purpoas of applying the most powerful muscles of the back, legs and arms from the foot stretchers to the oar handles during the power stroke in rowing. This backwards facing causes the oarsman to continually twist his neck and shoulders around to see forwards where he is going but most important to avoid running into obastacles including other boats. The twisting of the oarsman's neck and body restricts the free use of his important rowing muscles. The oar paddle blades produce thrust simply by pushing water backwards in the same direction of their backwards movement. It is well known that the paddle wheel steamer was less efficient than propeller driven steamers, because the paddle action is not as efficient a way of producing thrust as the angle of attack action of propeller blades. The lateral span of the sculls and sweeps is very large, exceeding nineteen feet with todays sculls and 24 feet with sweeps, which results in excessive aerodynamic drag when rowing against the wind.
The present invention offers improvements to high parformance rowing apparatus by causing the oarsman to face forwards instead of backwards, by improving the efficiency of producing thrust through the use of a hydrofoil function of the blades instead of by the paddle pushing action of conventional oars and thus reducing the wind resistance, by reducing the lateral span of the oars, and by eliminating the muscularly demanding task of balancing the boat by the oars, which improvement is accomplished by the use of the floatation and the hydrodynamic lifting of pontoons mounted below the extremities of the outriggers.
In the present invention, the improved efficiency of the forward facing seating and of the hydrofoil action of the blades, as well as the reduced wind resistance of the narrower span and reduced drag of planing the oars for balance on the return rowing stroke more than overcomes the drag of the added pontoons.